Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA,
the world’s largest luxury-goods maker, filed a U.S. trade
complaint seeking to block U.S. imports from China of handbags,
luggage and other accessories that copy the Louis Vuitton look.

Some Chinese companies are infringing trademarks “through
a systematic copying of Louis Vuitton product lines, bag styles
and overall identity,” the company said in a complaint filed
Dec. 3 with the U.S. International Trade Commission in
Washington.

LVMH, based in Paris, has been aggressive in trying to
curtail the amount of counterfeit goods that copy its luxury
brands. It sued EBay Inc., claiming the online auction company
didn’t work hard enough to prevent sales of knockoffs on its
site. Japan’s biggest online retailer, Rakuten Inc., signed a
deal with LVMH in September on plans to combat counterfeiting.

Louis Vuitton has “invested tens of millions of dollars
and decades of time and effort to create consumer recognition”
of the LV mark, the company said in the ITC complaint.

LVMH said in October that Louis Vuitton helped propel sales
at its fashion and leather-goods unit 26 percent in the third
quarter. The unit generated 6.3 billion euros ($8.24 billion) in
sales last year, or 37 percent of the company’s revenue.

In the ITC case, Louis Vuitton is seeking an order from the
trade commission that would ban all imports of counterfeit Louis
Vuitton products. It claims a Chinese couple who live in
Arcadia, California, have set up a series of shell companies in
China and the U.S. to make and sell the knockoffs in what Louis
Vuitton called “well organized and deceptive scams.”

Selling Knockoffs

The complaint also cites businesses in the U.S. that it
contends are selling counterfeits. The ITC has the power to
issue an order blocking imports of the copycat products
regardless of the name of the company selling them.

Mark Ramsey, owner of Alpha One Sourcing LLC, which runs
the Inspired Bagger website in Dallas said he hasn’t bought
handbags from the manufacturers or importers named in the
complaint and doesn’t know why his site, which sells 3,000
different styles, was listed.

“We don’t claim to sell Louis Vuitton,” he said in a
telephone interview. “We say they are ‘designer-inspired,’ but
we don’t mention a name. We never wanted to dabble in that. We
know the seriousness of it.”

Crack Down

The websites named in the ITC complaint weren’t among the
82 domain names shut down last month by the U.S. Justice
Department in a crack down on online sales of fake brand-name
goods. Efforts to reach the California couple and other
companies named in the complaint were unsuccessful.

Louis Vuitton, which said its monogram was created in 1896
to “deter imitators,” initiated an average of 39 raids a day
in 2009 and seized thousands of counterfeit products, according
to a fact-sheet the company distributed. The company said it
sells its product only in Louis Vuitton stores or through the
company’s website.

The complaint is In the Matter of Certain Handbags,
Luggage, Accessories and Packaging Thereof, Complaint No. 2772,
U.S. International Trade Commission (Washington).